Trump's Budget to Preserve the Swamp? New at Reason

Carrie Doyle | June 1, 2017, 0:11

Mulvaney, a former tea party congressman, is the driving force behind the Trump budget plan, winning the president's approval for big cuts to benefit programs whose budgets are essentially on autopilot. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., over potential cuts to entitlement programs. There's little appetite among Capitol Hill Republicans for a genuine effort to balance the budget; GOP lawmakers this year are instead pressing to rewrite the tax code and forge a spending deal with Democrats that would permit higher military spending.

"We believe that to be the case", Mulvaney said. Despite promises to protect Medicaid and other services, the proposed budget slashes $800 billion from Medicaid, $192 billion from nutritional assistance, $272 billion over all from welfare programs, and bars undocumented immigrants from collecting the child and dependent care tax credit all to make room for the president's devastatingly unnecessary border wall.

Mulvaney pushed back on those remarks, calling the CBO report "awful" and saying that the office is untrustworthy.

"We take care of the truly needy", he said. But Budget Director Mick Mulvaney on Thursday said receipts were coming in more slowly than the Treasury had anticipated.

Trump's budget is simply a proposal.

"Answer the question: The wealthiest family in America gets a $52 billion tax break as a result of the estate tax", Sanders told Mulvaney. "Please explain your logic to the American people".

In his response, Mulvaney noted that it is hard to predict the expected impact of the tax cuts on wealthy Americans.

"That is not true", Sanders shot back.

"That was borderline fascinating", Sen.

"I find it unfair that Mulvaney and the Trump administration disparage the director of the CBO when it was Tom Price who appointed (Keith Hall) in the first place", Sanders said.